


Spiritual Beliefs in OneShot

by ArgentDandelion



Category: OneShot (Video Game)
Genre: Analysis, Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Messiah, Meta, Nonfiction, Pokemon References, Religion, Religious Content, Religious Discussion, Souls, Video & Computer Games
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:07:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26342359
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentDandelion/pseuds/ArgentDandelion
Summary: Covers the spiritual beliefs of OneShot, such as having a "messiah" but not really a god, the lack of organized religion, and abundant religious terminology.
Kudos: 4





	Spiritual Beliefs in OneShot

_(Screenshot from OneShot, showing Niko, the ‘messiah’, with Rue, a possibly robotic fox. Contains spoilers for OneShot and its Solstice route.)_

## Souls and Robots

It’s commonly supposed that a soul grants humans (the only indisputable “people”, in real-world terms) a unique, or uniquely sophisticated, ability to think and feel relative to their animal brethren. Although narratives about artificial beings (e.g., robots) often bring up the possession of a soul as the dividing line between people and mere imitations, and OneShot discusses this dividing line, not once does dialogue in OneShot even use the word ‘soul’. (if the dialogue repository of the game is accurate, and it is not always so)

In fact, even the game when it uses the similar terms 'ghost’ or 'spirit’, it’s not used in a way that’s synonymous with 'soul’. For “ghost”, it’s only when referring to a sort of helping program/journal that’s the trace of a character who no longer lives within the world. In three out of four times it uses the similar word ‘spirit’, it’s in the context of the dryad-esque “plant spirit” character, Maize. The only time ‘spirit’ could be used as synonymous with ‘soul’, judging by the dialogue transcript, is when The World Machine/The Entity is described as “the spirit of the world”, and it’s a context where “mind”, “self”, or “consciousness” could also work.

Nonetheless, it seems there’s some sort of belief in an afterlife within the world of OneShot. There’s one scene of two characters (Calamus and Alula) addressing their deceased mother at a graveyard, and Alula saying: “I hope she can see us wherever she is!”. Additionally, one character (Lamplighter) asks “Am I dead?” after seemingly dying/getting caught in a lethal trap. For the latter, if there weren’t some sort of belief in an afterlife, he’d surely say something like, “What the heck/fudge is going on?” (Although the use of “Good heavens, no!” and “Who the heck?” once each might be evidence the people of _OneShot_ believe in an afterlife, it could just as easily a coincidence.)

## Other Religious Terminology

It’s actually odd that the game doesn’t use the common word ‘soul’, when it frequently uses other religious terms like ‘god’ (18 times) ‘messiah’ (64 times) ‘prophet’ (~6) ‘sacred’, (8) ‘savior’ (19) and one instance of ‘altar’ (when it easily could have used ‘dais’, even!). The word ‘prophet’ is notable because it’s in the name of one character: Prophetbot (called just ‘Prophet’ in an earlier version of OneShot).

‘Messiah’ is especially remarkable, since the term is very religious and strongly associated with one specific religious entity, Jesus of Nazareth. Indeed, according to the dialogue transcript, “messiah” occurs more than three times more than the word ‘savior’. People even call Niko ‘messiah’ instead of Niko’s actual name, and don’t even address Niko as “Messiah Niko”, suggesting there are multiple ones. Niko doesn’t seem uncomfortable about being referred to as ‘messiah’ or ‘savior’, which might suggest that, in Niko’s world, it’s not strongly religious in use, or connected to a very specific person.

Speaking of ‘sacred’*, it uses the word eight times: to refer to what’s basically a cemetery, the ‘sacred feathers’ of the Prophet, a deceased character, the enormous ‘sacred tower’ with the world’s sun at the top, and Niko’s ‘sacred ability’ to communicate directly with the world’s god (the player of OneShot). It’s interesting that the game would use ‘sacred’ and use it pretty often, instead of ‘magical’, ‘mystical’, ‘revered’, ‘ancestral’ (e.g., “ancestral burial grounds” rather than ‘sacred grounds’ with gravestones) or even ‘hallowed’ (religious, but perhaps less so than ‘sacred’).

## No Organized Religion

No one ever mentions particular religious/spiritual books, whether in a Bible-like context, as storybooks, as manuals, as even as compendiums of religious teachings or sayings. Admittedly, one character mentions reading about visions being “like something a prophet would see”, and relates that to Niko’s visions as someone who can talk to the god of OneShot, but he doesn’t elaborate where he read that.

The closest there is to a religious authority is The Author, a mysterious man viewed by almost all characters as an absurdly prolific and talented author who’s an expert in practically every subject. Even then, he’s viewed more like a bunch of scientific geniuses and popular, prolific authors (Stephen King, James Patterson, etc.) rolled into one.

The world of OneShot (or a previous version of it) once had a being called The Prophet, who had glowing, nigh-magical feathers and the ability to see into the future. One character mentions “a prophet” predicted “a savior [Niko] will arrive from another land”, and this prophet is strongly implied to be her. The Prophet is now deceased, but what seems to be her home holds what seem to be relics or artifacts, and has what's specifically called an “altar”.

## Divine Abilities/Miracles

Prophetbot, a robot programmed to give background information to the messiah, tells Niko: “Being The Bringer Of Our Sun, You Have The Sacred Ability To Communicate Directly With [Player]…An Ability That No One Else Possesses, Certainly Not I.” (formatting added for ease of reading) Niko talks with the player, god of OneShot, multiple times throughout the game, thinks it’s really cool, and other characters bring it up.

Niko has ‘visions’ three times throughout the game, and one character mentions it’s like “something a prophet would see” and: “I mean, if you can talk to [Player], it would make sense, right?”

## Not a God, But Still a Messiah

In the Solstice route, it’s revealed that the world of OneShot is a simulation of a long-destroyed world on The World Machine, a universe simulator that runs on the player of OneShot’s computer. Three people who came from the old, long-destroyed world, the “Old Worlders”, all but acknowledge the player isn’t really a god: it’s described how the world of _OneShot_ would feel just like game software on the player’s end. By opening up the program for _OneShot_ , the player would be “becoming god in the process.”

Oddly, though, the Old Worlders talk about the Old World’s old prophecy of a messiah from another world (Niko) and the building of a robot made to predict the specifics of the messiah back then, without any bit of skepticism. So, strangely enough, although the simulation doesn’t have an actual god, it still has a real messiah: the Old Worlders keep calling Niko that and don’t similarly re-contextualize Niko’s role.

## Comparisons with Other Media

OneShot’s retro-styled graphics and gameplay wouldn’t be out of a place as a mid-Gameboy Advance to early Nintendo DS game (perhaps 2000-2008 in North American release times), but by that standard, its use of religious elements is rather odd. It simultaneously has a lot of religious themes and surprisingly few.

OneShot has just one god, no organized religions or structures, and very few (arguably no) religious artifacts. In contrast, although Nintendo of America historically scrubbed away religious references for English video game releases, it nonetheless had a lot of temples, gods, and other religious concepts in The _Legend of Zelda_ and _Kid Icarus_. Even _Pokémon_ (a second-party franchise closely associated with Nintendo) has instances of religious, spiritual, or nigh-religious customs or legends surrounding _Pokémon_ ; most notably, one generation of games showed what’s all but stated to be a church.

Speaking of the word ‘sacred’ within _OneShot_ , Ho-oh, a godlike phoenix Legendary Pokémon that features in local legends and has the power of resurrection, has the signature move “Sacred Fire”. This was back in the _Pokémon_ franchise’s Generation II (~October 2000-~March 2003) when Nintendo’s policies against religious references were much stricter. One might argue that the games’ technical restriction of a 12-character move name limit made this necessary, but “Mystic Fire” has the same number of characters, but they didn’t use it. Apparently, certain religious terms like ‘sacred’ (in _Pokémon_ ) or ‘temple’ (like _The Legend of Zelda_ ’s infamous water temple) aren’t as objectionable as one might think.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to comment, either here or on the author's [Tumblr](https://argentdandelion.tumblr.com/).


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